SUBSCRIBE:

Chinese activist's nephew held incommunicado

Share

(Human Rights Watch/IFEX) - New York, October 16, 2012 - The municipal authorities responsible for numerous violations of the rights of the prominent blind activist Chen Guangcheng are violating the rights of his nephew, Chen Kegui, by denying him an independent lawyer and holding him incommunicado, said Human Rights Watch today.

On October 12, 2012, Chen's family learned that the Yinan County Public Security Bureau in Shandong province had transferred Chen Kegui's case to the state prosecution, paving the way for his indictment under the charge "intentional infliction of injury."

Chen Kegui has been held by police since late April 2012 for injuring several officials who broke into his family home in the middle of the night days after his uncle made a daring escape from illegal confinement in a house located in the same village.

"Local authorities are treating Chen Kegui with the same arbitrariness and disregard for the law that they did Chen Guangcheng," said Sophie Richardson, China Director at Human Rights Watch. "The central government, which pledged to investigate these officials for their abuse of Chen Guangcheng, should immediately intervene to protect Chen Kegui's rights."

In late April, Chen Guangcheng escaped from his home where he had been illegally confined for the previous 19 months. After his guards realized he had escaped, in the early morning hours of April 27, some 20 of them stormed the house of Chen's brother, located in the same village.

According to an account Chen Kegui gave before his arrest, he seized kitchen knives in self-defense when the men in plainclothes moved to apprehend him. Chen Kegui's mother said she saw the men beating her son and screaming, "Beat him to death!" before her son slashed at those who were beating him.

After the altercation, Chen Kegui called the police to turn himself in, but later fled and spent several days in hiding, during which time his mother was detained and charged with "harboring a criminal." Chen Kegui was ultimately apprehended and formally arrested on May 9. Police placed him at the Yinan County Detention Center in Shandong's Linyi Municipality, where he has remained incommunicado since.

On May 18, police denied lawyers appointed by Chen Kegui's family access to him, insisting that Kegui had already been provided with lawyers by the government-controlled legal aid center. Chen's father denounced the arrangement as "unacceptable" and expressed fears that his son was already being tortured in detention. The refusal to let family-appointed lawyers represent the defendant echoes the case of Chen Guangcheng himself, who in 2006 had also been appointed lawyers by the same legal aid center in his trial on charges of "damaging property" and "gathering crowds to disrupt traffic" in 2006. These lawyers proved unwilling to effectively defend him during his trial, and Chen Guangcheng was sentenced to four years and three months in prison.

According to Chinese law, the state prosecution must now decide within a maximum of a month and a half to decide whether to initiate prosecution, and can reject, amend the charges, or send back the case to the police for further investigation. While the charge of "intentional infliction of injury" (article 234 of the Criminal Law) might seem less serious than "intentional manslaughter," which is what the police initially announced, Chen Kegui and his family have always maintained that he had purely acted in self-defense.

"The fact that Chen Kegui has already been deprived of his right to choose his own lawyers does not bode well for the rest of the legal proceedings against him," said Richardson. "While it is legitimate for the judiciary to look into this case, it would be absurd if it does not take into account the long history of persecution and unlawful actions on the part of local authorities leading up to the incident."

In May 2012, during negotiations between the United States and Chinese governments over the fate of Chen Guangcheng, who sought refuge at the US Embassy in Beijing after his escape, Chinese state media reported that the local authorities in Linyi, Shandong province would be investigated for unlawfully confining Chen and his relatives. Chen later confirmed that an envoy from the central government has promised him an investigation. Yet, more than five months later, there has been no sign of such investigation. None of the local officials involved in the illegal house arrest have been removed from office. Restrictions on his family have eased since Chen left for the US, but the family is still monitored by the authorities.

Human Rights Watch urged the Chinese government to allow Chen Kegui access to his family and the freedom to choose his own lawyers, as well as to ensure that he is not tortured or mistreated. Should Chen's case move to the trial stage, the Shandong People's High Court should designate a court in another jurisdiction to conduct a fair and public trial since conditions for a fair trial cannot be found in Linyi Municipality due to the involvement of officials there in persecution Chen Guangcheng and his family.

"Chen Guangcheng's dramatic escape drew the world's attention to China's human rights violations and greatly embarrassed the government," said Richardson. "But instead of holding the local authorities to lawful behavior, the government seems to be tolerating their continuing abuse."

More from China

Dedicated internet users continued to employ circumvention technology and other creative tactics to defy and bypass restrictions on free expression. The government responded by increasing efforts to block circumvention tools, including through innovative cyberattacks and intimidation of software developers.

The 100-page report shows that Tibetan refugee communities in Nepal are now facing a de facto ban on political protests, sharp restrictions on public activities promoting Tibetan culture and religion, and routine abuses by Nepali security forces.

IFJ's report documents the continued deterioration of press freedoms in Mainland China, as well as Hong Kong and Macau. It takes its title in direct response to Chinese authorities adopting more repressive measures in 2013 reminiscent of the Mao era four decades ago, including direct censorship, Internet surveillance, abuse of legal process, harassment and intimidation, and televised confessions of journalists and bloggers without trial.

After already cracking down on freedom of information in recent years, President Erdoğan has taken advantage of the abortive coup d’état and the state of emergency in effect since 20 July to silence many more of his media critics, not only Gülen movement media and journalists but also, to a lesser extent, Kurdish, secularist and left-wing media.

This publication presents the findings of the media development assessment in Mongolia that began in 2012 to determine the state of the media in the country. The assessment was based on the UNESCO/IPDC Media Development Indicators (MDIs), an internationally recognized analytical tool used to provide detailed overviews of national media landscapes and related media development priorities.

“After the initial optimism during the Euromaidan movement, many journalists have become disillusioned. They are faced with the triple challenge of the war in the Eastern part of the country, the economic crisis and the digitalization of mass media.”

An officer of the Myanmar army recently filed a criminal complaint against two journalists for allegedly sowing disunity among the military. Even though mediation by the Press Council caused the military to withdraw the case, this incident demonstrates how the military continues to throw its weight to get back at what it perceives as negative publicity.

The government uses draconian laws such as the sedition provisions of the penal code, the criminal defamation law, and laws dealing with hate speech to silence dissent. These laws are vaguely worded, overly broad, and prone to misuse, and have been repeatedly used for political purposes against critics at the national and state level.

In recent years, the space afforded to civil society to operate freely has been shrinking dramatically across the world, presenting a serious threat to democracy and human rights. Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) have been especially badly affected by this shrinking political space.

The report is a frank assessment of the recent regime of online censorship and mass surveillance against a backdrop of longstanding, serious abuses of the judicial process and attacks on freedom of expression by Turkish authorities.

The report surveys the rocky landscape for media and public discourse since the ruling military junta lifted the curtain on the southeast Asian nation in 2012 after five decades of isolation from the modern world.

With the environment now recognized as a major challenge for humankind, Reporters Without Borders believes that particular attention should be paid to the journalists who take greats risk to investigate sensitive, environment-related subjects. The report highlights a steady deterioration in the situation for environmental reporters, who are increasingly exposed to many kinds of pressure, threats and violence.

The Pakistani government has significantly expanded its communication interception activities. This Privacy International report covers the intelligence services plan to capture all IP-traffic in Pakistan and other initiatives, pointing to gaps in the laws governing surveillance.

The need to regulate the transfer of surveillance technologies that pose a risk to human rights has been largely recognised by EU institutions and some EU member states. It is no longer a question of if the EU should do more in this area, but how.

Defamation and insult remain criminal offences in Portugal punishable by up to two years behind bars despite the fact that a number of international human rights bodies have found criminal defamation to be a disproportionate restriction on freedom of expression.

Despite its Constitutional commitment to free speech, India’s legal system makes it surprisingly easy to silence others. Routine corruption, inefficiency, and the selective enforcement of vague and overbroad laws allow individuals, or small groups, to censor opinions they find distasteful. - See more at: http://www.pen-international.org/the-india-report-executive-summary-and-key-findings/#sthash.TIIM2xbu.dpuf

Press freedom in the Philippines continued to be under attack from 2014 to 2015. The killing of journalists is continuing, with four journalists killed from May 2014 to May 2015. The trial of the accused masterminds of the Ampatuan (Maguindanao) Massacre and their supposed henchmen is continuing, but with a primary accused was released, while a witness in the same case was killed.

The year 2014 saw Malaysians standing up to exercise the rights guaranteed under the Federal Constitution, including freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. This continues a growing trend of facing up to state oppression. Unfortunately, this has been met with increasing repression. Malaysia has seen a concerted crackdown on the freedom of expression in the year 2014, which has escalated even further in 2015.

IFEX publishes original and member-produced free expression news and reports. Some member content has been edited by IFEX. We invite you to contact [email protected] to request permission to reproduce or republish in whole or in part content from this site.